


Core Values

by Cyborgsurprise



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6275071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyborgsurprise/pseuds/Cyborgsurprise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn't even attempt to barter down his initial fee, and that alone should've tipped him off to her oddities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Core Values

Robert Joseph MacCready should have known something was off about Al just by the way she stared blankly at him when he mentioned the Gunners.  She stuck out from the usual Goodneighbor crowd in such a painfully obvious way that he had let his curiosity win over his better judgment.  Her face was too clean, her cheeks round in a way that suggested she hadn't wanted for nutrition, and _that_ usually suggested caps.

Sure, she knew how to take advantage of cover, and certainly knew how to hold her rifle straight.  He had seen her reload her clips under fire faster than most other mercenaries he had worked with, but the things that came out of her mouth were _stupid_.    She asked him of coffee beans still existed.  She complained that she couldn’t find a hat that she liked.  She once described super mutants as _rude_.

He’s not sure what he had expected from someone too stupid to barter down his initial price, but even the full up-front payment wasn’t enough to convince him he’d made the right decision.  He had ignored her too-wide eyes, the curious staring, the way she looked at makeshift fortifications like she had never before seen something so clever and industrious.  She didn’t express the worn cynicism that most Commonwealth residents wore on their sleeves.  He should have known it meant… something.  He hadn’t quite figured out how it all fit together yet.

There was a lackadaisical air to how she liked to travel.  She enjoyed kicking tin cans down the road.  She gawked at decrepit monuments like a tourist.  Worst of all was her habit of playing the radio while she traveled.  He had been willing (sort of) to put up with it when they’d been in the boonies, but he had to put his foot down when they entered the city.  No way was he dying because his idiot boss wanted to listen to “Atom Bomb Baby” four times in one hour.

Now, on the road back to Diamond City, Al and MacCready were in the sullen aftermath of that very argument.  Al had taken point, but was spending more time shooting annoyed looks back at him than she was actually watching the road.  He was almost grateful when shots sounded: nothing broke tension like a good ol’ firefight. 

Al dropped to her knees reflexively at the first echoing cracks of gunfire.  She peered around the brick-and-mortar corner, squinting into the morning sun.  MacCready craned his neck to look over her shoulder.  He spotted the telltale fortifications before she did.  “Raiders,” he said lowly, pulling her back to cover.

“Why are they shooting at _us_?” she whispered.  God, she sounded so offended.  It was like she never been shot at before.

“They’re _raiders_.  They’ll shoot at anyone.”

She spared a moment to check her clip.  “That doesn’t seem like a good business strategy.”

He ignored her.  Raiders weren’t in the business of doing _business_.  “Did you catch a number?”

Al shook her head.  She fumbled around for a moment before her hands landed on a discarded bottle.  With a look of intense concentration, she flung it as hard as she could against the far building’s walls.  It shattered noisily.  Loud shouts were immediately followed by automatic rifle fire.  Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Al leaned back into the open, and MacCready knew her eyes were flickering wildly behind those stupid sunglasses she wore on bright days.  She was mouthing a head count.

Scooting back to MacCready’s side, she reported movement from seven people, pleased that _at least she didn’t hear any turrets_.

“Think it’s worth circling to higher ground?” he asked, scanning the nearby buildings.  No turrets meant no motion sensors.

Al hummed lowly in response, rocking back and forth on her heels while she weighed their options.  “I don’t want to risk tagging any additional groups, but…” her voice trailed off.  The gunfire had ceased.  She looked in the direction of the raiders (who were yelling orders again), then back at MacCready.  “Could you boost me to the second floor before they decide to investigate further?”

He eyed her doubtfully.

“Don’t make a weight joke.”

Maybe his response was a bit too automatic.  “I wasn’t going to!”

Al sniffed.  “I’ve got the suppressor and the bipod, and I’m not going to let you touch my rifle.”  She thumbed her scope possessively.

“I wouldn’t use your ugly rig if it was the last gun in the Commonwealth,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

In one of their recent barrel-measuring contests, Al had bragged that all she needed for a confirmed kill were two hundred yards and a clear line of sight.  Guess it was time for her to prove it.

 _You’re the boss_ , MacCready thought, carefully setting his rifle aside and flexing his hands.  “Hop up.”  He intertwined his fingers so she could use his hands as a step to climb up the collapsed drywall.  Al grinned and steadied her hands on his shoulders, trying to balance herself so he wouldn’t drop her.  He hoisted her higher, gritting his teeth as she scrambled onto the derelict floor.  When he felt her boot lift, he shook out his hands as he checked to make sure she wasn’t about to fall through the flooring and lead the raiders directly to their position.

She was squirming on her belly, though, and had somehow managed to appropriate her weight distribution widely enough to avoid crashing through the derelict floor.  He didn’t look away until she was safely positioned on the other side of the room.  She spent a minute fiddling with her bipod before she gave MacCready the most stereotypical and stupid looking thumbs-up he’d ever seen.  She jerked her head towards the raiders’ encampment, pointed at herself, then held up a finger.  _I’ll shoot first_ , she was saying.  She pointed at him and held up two.  _You shoot second_.  She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he settled into a prone position.  She grinned slyly.  He had learned early on that Al’s approach to combat was downright surgical.  She liked to engage on her own terms, which suited MacCready just fine.  He didn’t like being surprised either.

Her expression faltered as they heard another shout.  Closer, this time.  Al stiffened.  She liked their engagements to be quiet and clean, which MacCready appreciated, but traveling with her through the Commonwealth’s ruins could take _forever_.  She was looking through her scope now, her trigger hand raised.  He didn’t get why she insisted to look through her magnifiers with her left eye when she actually shot with her right hand- he thought she looked ridiculous.  He had told her as much before.  She didn’t seem to care, though, with her mouth hanging slightly open and her palm raised towards him in a very clear _don’t do anything yet_ gesture.

She was infuriating.  She was clearly _only now_ flicking the safety off on her rifle.  Goddamn.

The ambient noises from the raiders were beginning to die down again.  Minutes passed, and Al’s palm was still raised towards him.  Her shoulder muscles were beginning to shake from the exertion, but she was still peering through her scope.

Slowly (so slowly!) she lowered her hand.  She didn’t spare a glance at him as she nestled her right hand onto her trigger.   Clearly trusting that he was paying attention, she gave another thumbs up (Christ, how cliché).  He wasn’t sure how she knew that he had seen, but her hand lowered to steady itself on the forend of her weapon.

 _She likes to shoot from the far left and then inward_ , he reminded himself.  He strained his ears to hear her long, slow intake of breath: the telltale sounds of her preparing to fire.  If she was looking to take out the northernmost target, he needed to focus on the second most threatening raider.  Whoever was closest to scoping out their location…  He heard her breath pause.  He snuggled into the butt of his rifle and disengaged his own safety.

Her shot sounded a nanosecond before his.

The cracking of gunfire was more familiar to him than anything that had happened yet today.  He tried not to look too smug as his target dropped, knowing that his smiling cheekbones would partially obscure his scope.  Trusting that Al had managed to eliminate her target, he leapfrogged one head over to the next raider.  He was pleased to see a frantic expression in his eyes.  MacCready was even more pleased when, on his exhale, he dropped the raider despite a metal (probably bulletproof) helmet.  _I hope you’re taking notes, boss_.

Al’s second shot rang out, and he heard loud cursing.  _Only three left, if her count was correct_.  Following their unspoken protocol, he focused on the far right target.  The raider had divined their position by now, and was readying her heavy weaponry.  He was about to warn Al, when another shot echoed from Al’s position.

The gunner pulled back.  In her haste Al hadn’t managed a headshot, but the Gatling gunner had been hit somewhere around her shoulder.  MacCready didn’t allow himself the time to think before he squeezed another shot.  The target stumbled backward again, and he heard a third echoing _crack_.  Al had managed to rescope the target and fire.  The raider dropped.  There was more yelling now, cries of _the bastard is over there!_   He felt a certain vague sense of amusement that they were laboring under the impression that there was only one assailant.  He allowed himself a momentary grin his bolt action back again. _Peekaboo, motherfricker_.  He squeezed his finger.  The trigger wall never felt as good as it did when he was watching a thug with a semi-automatic drop like a rag doll.

Al made some kind of content exhalation, then fired two rounds in quick succession.  There was a sudden and heavy silence.

MacCready adjusted his sights.  There was no visible movement, but that didn’t necessarily mean the ramparts were clear.  The last thing he needed was to have to clean blood off his jacket.  He waited in silence, staring at the building’s exoskeleton.  If Al wasn’t moving, he wasn’t about to be stupid enough to move either.  When he heard Al rustling to disengage, MacCready waited a few moments longer, determined not to be a casualty of carelessness.  When he was satisfied that no one was about to launch a missile at their location, he eased his finger off his trigger.  Al had already packed up and slid down the collapsed floor to his position, grinning wickedly.

“Wanna go check them out?” she asked as MacCready pulled himself to his knees.  “Empty their pockets?”

 “Absolutely.” 

Al was already several paces ahead of him, apparently having devised a route to the raiders during the firefight.  She slipped up the ladders with expert ease, only pausing before her head broke the second floor in one last precaution.  When she was comfortable there weren’t any hidden gunmen, she pulled herself up the final rungs and knelt at the first body she could find.

He could see her hands skimming the raider’s silhouette, carefully avoiding the shattered skull and splattered brain matter.  “If we break the finger to get that ring, I bet we could sell it for a whole _pile_ of caps,” he said, prodding the corpse’s hand with his boot.

Al paused, looking thoughtful.  “No,” she said slowly, her eyes on the hands but her mind clearly somewhere else.  “No, I don’t like that.  Don’t do that.”

MacCready looked at her incredulously.  Unless she was planning to sleep in the gutter when they got to Diamond City, she was going to have to start doing something to bring in the money.

Al let her fingers flutter over his raider’s remaining eye.  “They’re people.  They were doing a job.”  Her tone wasn’t quite as regretful as her words.

“Their job was to kill us.”  Al pursed her lips, and he held up his hands in an exasperated mock surrender.  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” he snapped.  No one in the Commonwealth should ever feel bad for shooting raiders.

Al held his gaze for a moment longer before she looked back down at the hand.  “Well he _did_ call me a bitch,” she mused, snapping the fingerbone and twisting the ring until it was hers.  The gleam was back in her eyes when she pocketed the jewelry and turned to frisk the remaining bodies.  She gave the last corpse a clinical pat-down, her fingers dipping into its unbloodied pockets and hip pouches.  He appreciated that she was at least _trying_ to get their money’s worth.  Maybe she’d manage to scavenge enough to reimburse him for the ammo he spent keeping her alive.

She stood up, her hands cupped.  A few caps were slipping through her fingers.  “Mac,” she said.  He looked at her with raised eyebrows.  “Is there an easier way to carry all these?”

“Yeah, you can give ‘em to me.”  _Idiot_.

And Al – _darn her_ – didn’t even blink as she dumped the entire handful into his outstretched hands.

“Thanks,” she said finally, as if he was doing her a favor.  “I gotta figure out how to organize my bag space better.”  She stretched her arms, then readjusted her rifle strap.  “C’mon,” she said with sudden renewed energy.  “We still heading south?”

She rubbed him just wrong enough to put him on edge, and yet here he was: still breathing and with two handfuls of her caps.

“Yeah,” he huffed, shoving his hands in his pockets.  Those caps were his now.  “South.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Zeltronparty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/reanimatrix/pseuds/zeltronparty) for looking this over while I beat my head against a wall.
> 
> Come hang out with me on [tumblr!](http://cyborgsurprise.tumblr.com/)


End file.
